MICHAEL Jackson was known for being happy and childlike, but he had a cold side, reveals legendary record producer LA Reid in his new memoir.

He was especially mean to competitor Prince and dismissive of his older brother Jermaine, Reid writes in his new memoir, Sing To Me.

In the early 1990s, Reid was co-producing an album for Jermaine when Michael Jackson’s manager called asking if Reid and his partner, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, would like to discuss writing songs with the star.

Reid told Jermaine only that they were slipping away to Los Angeles for a quick project. They didn’t mention what it was.

A helicopter picked up the two at Burbank Airport and flew them to Neverland Ranch, where they were met by an assistant with a nondisclosure agreement (“Nobody got to see Michael without signing one”) and were taken to Jackson’s library.

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Finally, he brought them to a screening room and showed them footage of a 1983 James Brown concert where Jackson, called on stage as a guest, “danced a few steps,” then told Brown that Prince, Jackson’s longtime rival, was in the crowd as well.

Brown called him up too, but to Jackson’s delight, his appearance didn’t go nearly as well.

“Prince [couldn’t] make his guitar work, frantically stripping off his shirt and trying tricks with the microphone stand and making all these poses. After Michael’s dazzling star turn, Prince fell as flat as he could, and Michael enjoyed laughing at the video.”

But when they went back to work on his record, Jermaine complicated matters further by dropping a bombshell.

“I want to make a song about my brother,” he said. “I want to talk about how he’s treated me through the years, like how every time I find producers like you guys, he takes my producers. He doesn’t care about his family or anybody but himself.”

The brothers convened at their mother’s house to discuss the issue, after which Jermaine called Reid to say that the record would stay on the air, followed by Michael calling to again tell Reid to put a stop to it.

Two days later, Reid writes, “The record disappeared off the air, as if it had never been there in the first place. I don’t know what Michael did. I don’t know if Michael did anything, but it went away in a flash.”